Interfaith by numbers

Editorial

December is the month when Canadian multiculturalism lays bare some of its frailties. For some years now, the once-ubiquitous "Merry Christmas" has been largely replaced with the ecumenical "Happy holidays." This has been fodder for controversy, mostly among those who are still trying to adapt to such novelties as the metric system. But such is the price of an increasingly diverse – and mutually respectful – society.

Of course, despite massive demographic changes since the reform of immigration policy in the 1960s, Canada remains an overwhelmingly Christian country – the 2001 Census determined that 77 per cent of Canadians self-define as Christian. The most notable change has happened at the other end of the spectrum, where the small religious minorities have shuffled around their Census orders. The proportion of Jewish Canadians has remained about one per cent of the total Canadian population, while the Muslim, Hindu, Sikh and Buddhist populations have increased.

All of this is well and good, but there are some unintended consequences that probably have an impact on the conscious and unconscious attitudes of Canadians.

Among obvious developments is the Chanukah-Christmas conflation. Christians who seek to be respectful and inclusive kindly offer Jewish friends a happy Chanukah. This is thoughtful and welcome, inspired by the sense of universal festiveness that envelops Canadians of all faiths who seek a few days of bright celebration in the midst of a dark, cold winter. But Chanukah is not, of course, the major Jewish calendar event that many non-Jews assume. Only because of its proximity to Christmas does Chanukah attain so prominent a role. Canadians who better appreciate the comparative magnitude of Jewish holy days will take a moment in the early autumn to wish us a happy new year or, if they are really plugged in to things Judaic, a shana tovah.

Still, kind thoughts are always welcome. What presents a cultural misunderstanding of potentially greater significance is the comparative equanimity created by this well-intentioned multiculturalism. This attempt at inclusion, combined with Jewish contributions to the most visible public enterprises – business, the professions, media, show biz – may create a perception that Jews number higher than we do in statistical fact. This is fraught territory, given that reminding others that Jews are a tiny minority worldwide can merely exacerbate pre-existing prejudices that Jews have influence beyond what our numbers warrant, which is the basis of most anti-Semitic conspiracies.

The answer to this is relatively simple, of course: there is a Jewish "conspiracy" that has ensured generations of significant contributions to science, the arts, business and other fields. It is called education. Because of the unique history of the Jewish people, both in terms of religious tradition, which venerates learning and questioning, and historical experience, which rewarded innovation and knowledge, Jews were uniquely prepared for the modern world.

This fact clouds the eternal reality that our numbers are infinitesimally small. Ask a young British Columbian in the public school system and you are likely to be surprised that they know what a dreidel is, maybe the lyrics to a Chanukah song and possibly a vague outline of the story of the Maccabees and the miracle of the oil. In order to be multicultural and to educate about religious difference, the education system has integrated aspects of other traditions into the curriculum. (A cynic might observe that a single Chanukah song or some other cultural component might be politically correct cover for what remains, in effect, a school Christmas concert.)

But then ask them how many Jews there are in the world. The answer may astound. A recent highly unscientific quiz carried out among well-educated, well-informed non-Jewish young British Columbians came up with estimates that 10 per cent of Canadians are Jewish and that there are as many as 600 million Jews in the world. Recently, a guest on a radio program referred to Christianity, Islam and Judaism as "the world's three main religions." He may have meant "three monotheistic faiths," or he may actually think that Jews are numerically on par with these other two groups.

In fact, there are about 14 million Jews in the world. There are nearly three times as many Canadians as there are Jews. Muslims outnumber Jews in the world 1,000-to-one. Christians outnumber Jews only slightly less enormously.

All of this is merely to illustrate that December can be deceptive. It is a time when Jews can feel our minority status most keenly, while other Canadians, conversely, may be reinforcing their misunderstanding of our miniscule demographic reality.

There are implications to this misapprehension, not least in terms of world perceptions of Israel and its vulnerability. The David and Goliath template upon which the Israeli-Arab conflict has been projected is, since 1967 at least, completely inverted, in part perhaps because of the simple ignorance of these most basic Jewish statistical facts.

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